GOING, GOING, GONE?

Ruth Ann Minner is the first woman in Delaware to be
the governor, but she is also on the verge of becoming a
noteworthy "last" -- the last woman in Delaware in
statewide office.

When Minner's second term expires in January and she
retires, the odds are close to insurmountable that
statewide officialdom will be just for men.

Who knew the name of a hair coloring solution could
turn into the state motto?

It happened nonchalantly, the way pay-telephone
booths and black-and-white televisions just were not
around anymore.

"I'm a little saddened by it. I don't know how to
explain it," said state Rep. Helene Keeley, the
Democratic minority whip.

The retreat occurred over the last decade. In 1998
there was virtually gender parity with four of the nine
statewide offices occupied by women -- Minner, the lone
Democrat, as lieutenant governor along with a Republican
trio of Attorney General Jane Brady, Treasurer Janet
Rzewnicki and Insurance Commissioner Donna Lee Williams.

Minner and Brady both were regarded as potential
gubernatorial candidates. When Minner broke through in
2000, it created a sense that gender equity had a
permanent place in the political environment here. Now
it looks like a false spring.

Minner remains the only woman to reach the charmed
circle of the state's most prestigious officeholders --
governor and the three members of the congressional
delegation. Delaware has not elected a woman to Capitol
Hill yet.

It seems strange that the dearth of women comes now,
after Minner provided a living example -- and she was
not the only one.

"Minner and the most serious woman candidate for
president," said state Sen. Liane Sorenson, the
Republican minority whip.

The political history of women in Delaware has not
been covered in glory. The state had a chance to provide
the decisive vote to ratify the 19th Amendment for
women's suffrage in 1920, but the legislature defeated
it. The clash, one of the most famous ever, was called
the "War of the Roses" because the pro-ratification
forces wore yellow ones and the other side wore red.

The amendment became the law of the land in 1920,
anyway, but it took another 36 years before a woman in
Delaware was elected to statewide office.

Vera Davis, a Republican grande dame from Kent
County, won the treasurer's race in 1956. She was
defeated two years later by Belle Everett, her
Democratic counterpart. Everett had staying power --
enough to keep the office for four terms and to have the
Kent County Democrats name their annual dinner after
her.

The first women elected to statewide office other
than treasurer were Minner as lieutenant governor and
Williams as insurance commissioner, both in 1992.
Rzewnicki already was there as treasurer, and Brady came
along in 1994.

That is all. Since the creation of the Delaware State
in 1776, the entire statewide class of women not
pigeonholed as treasurer is Minner, Brady and Williams.

This is politics. It is not supposed to be almost as
hard as cracking the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Delaware's political standards, the women have not
lasted long. Joe Biden, the Democratic senator, has set
the all-time mark with 35 years in statewide office. Tom
Carper, the other Democratic senator, won his first
statewide race in 1976, and Mike Castle, the
Republican congressman, won his in 1980.

There are three women running for statewide office in
2008, but for the most part it seems like old times --
when women got ballot slots that had gone begging.
Republican Christine O'Donnell is running against Biden.
Democrat Karen Hartley-Nagle is in a Democratic
congressional primary leading to a race against Castle.
Democrat Karen Weldin Stewart is making her third try
for insurance commissioner.

There has not been a conspiracy to rid statewide
offices of women, nor has there been the vigilance
needed to preserve such a fragile beachhead.

"There's a good-new-boy network out there," groused
one politician, criticizing both the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party for it.

Whatever it is, the women were crowded out by a new
phalanx of men, talented enough to be regarded as part
of the state's next generation of leadership.

Rzewnicki lost for treasurer in 1998 to Jack Markell,
one of the two Democrats running for governor this year.
A hasty retirement by Williams saved her from a
challenge in 2004 from Matt Denn, the Democratic
insurance commissioner now a candidate for lieutenant
governor. Brady angled for a judgeship that kept her
from facing Beau Biden, the Democrat elected attorney
general in 2006.

"The farm team for the Democrats is an impenetrable
wall," Sorenson said.

Jim Soles, a political scientist retired from the
University of Delaware, wonders whether this pause for
women in politics comes as they discovered they can make
their way in the private sector.

"I think part of it may be the growing influence of
women in business and in the professions, doctors and
lawyers. Maybe in their 50s and 60s they will run for
something, but right now they have children to send to
college," Soles said.

There are still women willing to run for the
legislature, where roughly one-third of its 62 members
are women, some with key leadership roles. In addition
to Sorenson and Keeley, there are state Sen. Patti
Blevins as the Democratic majority whip and state Sen.
Nancy Cook, one of the most respected figures in
Legislative Hall, as the Democratic co-chair of the
Joint Finance Committee.

Sorenson is waiting for some women to be willing to
come out of the legislature to run for higher office,
like some of her Republican colleagues in the state
House of Representatives. "I'd love to see Debbie Hudson
or Donna Stone," she said.

What about Sorenson herself? "I'm happy where I am,"
she said.

Right answer. Sorenson is up for election this year
and does not need any false distractions. There are two
men on the Democratic side gunning for her seat.